SEMINARS

The role of probability in the sciences is a special focus of the Centre’s transdisciplinary research seminar, “The
Probabilism Sessions”. Scientists present the development of the study of randomness in their disciplines, comparing
definitions, methods and results. Augustin Cournot’s writings on probability theory serve as the source of inspiration.

Initiation to Probability: Middle-School Students Take on Martingales

As part of the Cournot programme for middle school students in Priority Education Networks (REP) in France, Josselin Garnier, Professor at the École Polytechnique, will host, along with their mathematics teacher Clément Martin, a group of 14 and 15-year-olds from the Collège des Petits Ponts in Clamart for an afternoon dedicated to games of probability: the game of double or quits, the game of martingales, and the game of the maximum.

Can we learn something philosophical from experimental philosophy?

Maison des Sciences Économiques

Speaker:
Pascal Engel (EHESS)

The debate about the relevance of experimental philosophy has been, in my view, misconceived. Both experimental philosophers and their "a priorist" opponents have assumed that the issue turns upon whether thought experiments can yield philosophical insight and contribute to conceptual analysis, the latter assuming that the answer is positive, the former that it is negative. Both parties over-emphasize the importance of thought experiments and counterfactual thinking in philosophy, as well as the role of intuitions. Philosophy is indeed mostly conceptual analysis, but thought experiments do not play a central role and the role of intuitions is not essential. Philosophy is first and foremost a matter of constructing theories and arguing for them; thought experiments can only make sense within this larger context.

WHY EUROPE NEEDS A FUNDING MARKETS UNION

Following the financial crisis, the European Union took a number of initiatives to foster financial integration between member countries, notably through the Banking Union and more recently through the Capital Markets Union. Do Eurosystem central banks have any particular motivation for accompanying and encouraging this movement?

This seminar will propose a new mechanism by which the barriers to credit market integration challenge the viability and the desirability of a common currency. Credit market integration appears to be a necessary ingredient in order to reap fully the benefit of monetary integration, independently of the homogenous transmission of monetary policy and the asymmetrical shocks that are usually put forward in economic debate.

Tuesday, 29 November 2016 - PARIS

Economic Crises and the Lender of Last Resort:
Evidence from 19th Century France

How can central banks best help to stabilize economic shocks? A historical case from France’s history will be presented. The crisis sparked by the arrival of the agricultural disease phylloxera in the 1860s shows the importance of the conditions of access to central bank loans in stabilizing the default rates of non-financial companies. The results suggest that it must guarantee easy access and a large array of guaranties in its operations with economic agents. What lessons in monetary policy can we draw from this study for the current period?

WHAT FORCES GOVERN THE EVOLUTION OF CEO PAY IN FRANCE?

The pay of Chief Executive Officers (CEO) has rapidly increased over the last decades. How can this development be explained? Is it due to a competitive process used to attract and reward the best talent? Or should institutional factors be taken into account: managerial power, the weight of outsider scrutiny or financial market activism? The study presented in this seminar will bring to light the forces at play by looking at the evolution of CEO pay in listed companies in France since the implementation of new disclosure rules in 2001.

JEVONS AND THE DYNAMICS OF INDUSTRIALIZATION: LESSONS FROM THE PAST AND AN OUTLOOK INTO THE FUTURE

The seminar will discuss William Stanley Jevons’ contribution to the issues of energy and industrialization. His book on “The coal question”(1865/66) has been widely perceived as a starting point for critical debates about “limits to growth”, resource availability, the fallacies of efficiency, and understanding the carbon-based industrial system.

We will critically re-examine Jevons’ findings, how his ideas were born and conceptualized, and what lessons have been drawn. We will also look at recent international trends of using key resources and how they have been shaped by stages of industrialization. Finally, we will engage in an outlook on how such trends and innovations can contribute to the aims of the Paris COP on climate change and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

This seminar is dedicated to the memory of Alain Desrosières, whom the Centre had the good fortune to have among its contributors on several occasions.
Emmanuel Didier (CNRS) , who coordinated the text and wrote the introduction, will present Alain’s posthumous book, “Prouver et gouverner”.